You know when you go to see a magician that you’re going to be looking carefully for sneaky tricks and sleights of hand. Adelaide magician Sam King had his audience super close in the Le Roi space at the Belgian Beer café, and we couldn’t see any devious undertakings all night! All his magic was done with simple cards, bubbles, numbers and even a dorky large-scale mannequin, but all the joy came from Sam himself and his cheerful delivery style. My favourite magic was his clever use of random numbers and phone calculators where we all ended up with a special final result. (Not telling the result, no spoilers from me)!

Sam King is an endearing, bespectacled and self-described “offbeat” magician who has a quirky and relaxed approach to performing that was very pleasant to watch. The audience has lots of simple participation moments that were in no way intimidating, and I certainly enjoyed my moments in the spotlight. As Sam himself said, “Look at you, 14 people in a room listening to a man talk about bubbles for an hour.”

Sam had a range of audience members the night we attended and he dealt very well with a couple of young hecklers in the front row. Whilst the show isn’t designed for children, the two boys that attended told me that they, “Loved it, it was so funny...So funny...Yeah, I thought it was really funny.” Yep, those two certainly enjoyed lots of laughs from the show! In fact, we all got a lot of amusement from this Magical Soap Opera parody. The opening video created by and starring Sam could’ve been incorporated more, as its silliness was very clever. 

Audience reactions ranged from, “It was endearingly awkward and quirky,” to “I haven’t seen anything like it before.”

I recommend this show to anyone who enjoys a sweetly charming and highly original show with magic, bubbles and audience participation.